


After death and before life

by captainhurricane



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: well if you know anything about HP you know whose death is referenced
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-29
Updated: 2014-07-29
Packaged: 2018-02-11 00:13:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2045580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainhurricane/pseuds/captainhurricane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>there is only silence. (pre-philosopher's stone)</p>
            </blockquote>





	After death and before life

**Author's Note:**

> for a tumblr writing challenge. I don't think I've ever written anything about HP before despite loving it over half of my short life so.. yeah.

Just last week he had been over at the Potters, one of those more or less cheerful meetings they had managed to sneak in despite living under the heavy knowledge that death might lurk behind every careless word. He had chatted with James, had helped Lily around the house and most importantly- had gazed with amazed eyes at the tiny boy with bright green eyes and felt more pride than ever in his life to know what this little one is his godson. Just last week. Six days and three hours ago.

Now Sirius kneels in front of what’s left of that house (so full of life and warmth and the laughter of his best friends), listens to the awful, deafening silence of death and keeps Harry against himself, feels the little boy shiver and cry and ask again after his mom. Sirius can’t find it in himself to answer, a lump in his throat. James and Lily Potter have been silenced and that’s – that’s the worst part, Sirius thinks. James was never one for silence, always chattering and ready for tricks in his school days, even after graduating when love had pushed away most of the immaturity, he had always been ready to accept a late-night conversation and a shot of firewhiskey. Lily had been quieter, but she had been able to fill the room just by walking in, to lift up everyone’s spirits with a flicker of fire-red hair.

”Mom?” Harry tugs on Sirius’ leather jacket, blinking large, wet green eyes at him. The lights of Sirius’ motorcycle illuminate both of them.

”Your mom is, she-” Sirius starts. The smell of smoke might never leave his clothes after this and Sirius can’t bear to think what he’ll find if he were to step inside the broken threshold. It’s like the green light of death still lingers, to remind of the quiet that has settled over a life once well lived. A broken sob escapes.

Harry starts to cry again, tugs Sirius’ jacket again.

”Daddy, mommy,” he sobs. Sirius wishes he was here, at that moment when the door was opened and James and Lily were- by Merlin, not them. Not James who had just learned the joy being kind could bring, not brilliant, gentle Lily who always walked with her head held high. Both of them having been parents for barely a year, now they’ll never know. Sirius brushes past the lightning scar on Harry’s forehead, feeling fierce anger surge up within himself.

”I should have been here to protect you, Harry,” Sirius says.

”Silence shouldn’t be the one to replace your parents, you should have- you should-” Sirius keeps brushing his thumb over the scar, feeling the familiar burn of anger within himself, staining his grief with red.

”I want mommy,” says Harry then and sniffles.

”I know, Harry. I’m so sorry,” Sirius murmurs and wishes he had anything but empty words to break the silence that had taken over Godrick’s Hollow, had taken over the house that had become a home for him too.

*

Sirius still wishes he could have been by his godson’s side once the cell door clicks shut behind him, once his happiness, every good memory held within starts to drain away. Harry, how is he, little Harry who should have grown up with loving parents instead of having them taken away. Harry, James, Lily. That chilly October-night all vanish into the swish of Dementor-cloaks, only to be replaced by cold, horrible silence filling up every nook and cranny of Sirius’ brain. He hides in the furthest corner of his cell and presses his hands tight against his ears. The silence stays, the silence remains. Sometimes come the whispers of you deserve it, you rotten black sheep, you murderer, you monster. Only sometimes. First couple of years Sirius goes mad in the silence, sometimes spends hours sobbing and clawing at the wall. Sometimes he reads the magazines he manages to get to himself. Harry, he thinks. Harry, the only thing that makes sense in the silence inside his mind. He goes back to the most horrifying moment of his life; that chilly October night when he had found two of his best friends dead, he goes back to that moment the most out of anything. The Dementors slide past his cell, sometimes gaze upon him from within the nothing held within their hoods. Their silence only serves to press more weight to Sirius.

He holds on. He holds on for twelve years. For Harry.


End file.
